Those preserved animals you dissected in science class are now also artwork that prices up to $20,000 yen or $250. Iori Tomita, a 28 year old Japanese artist, transforms dead animal carcasses into colorful art through a long and tedious scientific process that can take him months, even a year.

Designboom reports that Tomita removes the skins of animals preserved in formaldehyde then soaks the creatures in a mixture of blue stain, ethyl alcohol, and glacial acetic acid. He then breaks down the protein and muscles through the enzyme trypsin to give them a ghostly transparent look. The bones are then soaked in potassium hydroxide and dye and preserved as stained masterpieces in glycerin.

Tomita first learned his trade as a fisherman and has cultivated a niche where science meets art and skeletons meet artistic immortalization.

“People may look at my specimens as an academic material, a piece of art, or even an entrance to philosophy,” Tomita said on his website. “There is no limitation to how you interpret their meaning. I hope you will find my work as a ‘lens’ to project a new image, a new world that you’ve never seen before.”